Behind the promenade at Felpham is a terrace of brightly coloured beach huts, set back on an open grass area. As we walked through we noticed a gazebo on the grass, and some form of display. We walked over and found an art sale featuring paintings by local artists.

We stopped to take a look. There were plenty of blank spaces on our walls at home; maybe we could find a painting of our Coastal Path. Two pictures immediately jumped out at me. Both were acrylic and by an artist called Jane Pesterfield. You can see her in the picture above – that’s right, that’s her in purple on the left hand side. Her first picture first was of Littlehampton. I recognised it immediately.

One of the things I liked most about this picture was the sand, and how it has been graded so as to become smaller and smaller in the distance. That, together with the shadow of the beacon, gives the picture real depth, even in the foreground.

The second picture was also of the Sussex coastline, but was more of the sea and I could not identify the exact location. It was also painted in acrylic. The artist had again used sand and small pebbles, and this time also dried seaweed.

I approached the sales booth. I explained that we were in the middle of walking round the coast of Britain, and that I wanted to buy the Littlehampton picture. However, carrying original works of art in my backpack had not been something I had anticipated during my preparations for today’s walk. Jane Pesterfield was incredibly accommodating, allowing me to leave the most modest of deposits so I could return later in the day. One good turn deserves another: by the time I returned I had decided to buy the second picture too. Here they are, hanging in our Garden Room at home, as reminders of where we have been. We are chuffed to bits with our purchases. I wonder how many more pictures we may collect on our travels? A fair few, I hope…

Points on this part of the walk (copy and paste the co-ordinates into Google Earth):